The Order Button Mystery

Hi Dennis

My first question... do they have to click the order button to get the price?

If so, then most of the 80% may be clicking the order button just to find out how much it is! In that case, clicking your order button doesn't mean they're ready to buy.

If not, then it could well be your order process after all. Do you really NEED the phone number thing?

As others have pointed out, it's difficult to be specific without seeing your site and order form.

'Add to cart' is fine, does well usually but only to be used it actually adding to a cart.

If they're hitting a cart button and being dumped on an order form you're upsetting them by acting weird. Try not.

The most common cause of cart abandonment is postage or hidden costs. As Paul says above, they want to check the price. If it's a physical product with postage try moving some of the postage fee onto the price, to make the postage look smaller.


B.

Before I give you guys the link so you can see for yourselves, I'd like to answer some of your questions..

- They discover the price (and moneyback guarantee) BEFORE they ever see an order button

- I use 1shoppingcart.com for processing payments etc. and strangely enough, they do require you to fill in your digits to complete the order process (but if there's anyone out there that can contradict me on this one..I'd LOVE to hear it!)

- And bigsofty, the whole thing about 1shopping (otherwise an awesome company so don't consider this a "hating frenzy") is that the only order button image they give you IS that add to cart thing, after which you're directly taken to an order form!

- There aren't any hidden costs either: no value added tax, shipping & handling etc. because it's a downloadable product AND taxes are included

- Proof of concept: I have sold a whole bunch of copies but it's more a once per week/month kinda thing, but the back end is HUGE (tripled my profits with two not even optimized back end products)..so the concept DOES work and is built on what the market wants (btw: the dating advice industry is 100+ million dollars every year), but it's the offer/order process that's the problem in my opinion.

Now we got that out of the way, here's a quick overview of what I've applied: compelling headline, here's who I am piece (intro + proof of expertise), freeline content (a free insight), here's what you get (bullets), proof that it works (video), handling objections, bonuses, moneyback guarantee, take away..testimonials..so the whole nine yards.

See for yourself on Online Dating Tips: Everything A Man Should Know About Meeting Women Online

And by all means: if you do anything at all (because it's long style copy I can understand if you become bored ), then check out the screen AFTER the letter: the order form.

Any thoughts are much appreciated!

note: apparently warriorforum automatically picks up the title of my letter..lol..but by all means moderators, this is for learning copywriting purposes and not selling so don't be bothered ;-)

I'm off to bed but I'll skim over it for ya..

Headline is too long.

Image is on the wrong side.

'Dear friend' - speak to Kyle...

You introduce yourself before grabbing the readers attention and promising them a benefit for reading the page.

You mention 8 weeks before you build images of success, with proof. You're making it sound hard.

"met my dream girl" - sounds like luck, weak. Change it.

Cries of desperation, wanted anybody with a pulse etc etc - here you're too strong and unbelievable, besides, who wants advice from someone like that? Take care not to put yourself down too much. Consider an event, a story with a story to it, something like when you went to college the babes were so hot - but nothing you did would work, you tried everything blah..

OK, the story picks up and seems good (disclaimer, I AM half asleep and skimming through before wifey gets out the shower..)

Your testimonials are all down the side - build the best ones into the copy.

Holy crap, just noticed how long this is. OK, like any visitor I now start scrolling - I'd suggest you use the 'INTERNET' as a sub heading, with a bit of effort in it, as your first heading is about 'interested replies', which is a bit disjointed.

Next header is too long.. and unbelievable cos I'm scrolling..

Here's what I'll get? I'm 1/5th of the way in and you're making an offer? Ah, bullets. BAD heading.

Bullets.. bullets... more bullets.. you studied under Gatling?

This is a first - boredom by bullets...

Video! Wifey's out the shower, no time.

'Why' heading sux.

The key image SUX.

OK, skipping down to the famous add to cart button.


Ah.

First, your credit card logos are bigger than the buttons. Reverse that. Secondly, buttons, plural. WTF?

Ah, payment plan.. nice, though it best be expensive if you're doing that and I didn't see enough value. You say you tell em the price? Where? I'm not seeing it..

The whole button area is messy, confusing, you're using 'purchase' and 'cost' right now to it and guess what? My first instinct would be to hit the button as see how much it cost.

Just like you were told earlier



B.

next to it, not 'now to it'. I plead sleepy.


B.

Hi Dennis

Thanks for sharing your web site. I haven't read what others have posted (since you posted your link), so as not to be influenced by your comments.

OK, I didn't read it word for word, but skimmed it, trying to pay attention to as much as I could. I think you've done quite a good job so far... I especially found your earlier stories to be quite entertaining. It looks like you're going for a David DeAngelo style letter.

Personally, I think the HEADLINE is too busy. You're trying to cram everything into it, and you're insantly admitting you're selling something. While that may work at times, you're also clouding people's judgment straight away. They are instantly looking at your page through a "sales" lense.

Plus, along with all the testimonials on the side, it makes for a very "busy" page to start, with the eye being drawn all over the place. Which do you want them to read first, your headline and copy, OR the testimonials? You can't have both... if you DIVIDE their attention, you may lose them.

Also, while your story is good, after the headline it all starts off all about YOU, YOU, YOU. You need to almost instantly tie in your discoveries and knowledge to the READER very quickly.

Also, with your bullet points - they seem to be more a list of FEATURES. You need to also convert them to benefits, and what each feature will do for the reader, i.e.

OK, great... but tell the reader what will happen to them if they use this tip... or what will happen if they don't. If you notice DeAngelo's sales letters (which I think you've tried to follow) you'll notice he does this almost all of the time with his bullet points.

So it's not just a mistake... tell them WHAT WILL HAPPEN if they do, or don't!

You should change the comma in the price to a full stop / period, ie. $39.80. That's how prices are written in dollars. The comma makes it look more expensive than it is.

OK, these are just some fairly quick thoughts. Overall, I think you haven't done a bad job, but you just need to relate things more TO THE READER.

I'm familiar with DeAngelo's sales letters because I analyzed them in-depth in my Guru Report #1... and DeAngelo is definitely a good guru to model, but you have to notice how he's more subtle. For example, look at HIS headlines compared to yours. He doesn't try and sell right from the start. Instead, he RELATES to his audience. It's like, "Hey... I know where you're at... I understand... I've been there... Here's my story and how it will be RELEVANT to you."

I think you will benefit a lot from my Guru Report #1, but if you're not able to get that, I hope these tips have been useful to you.

No mystery, it's that the button is a mystery to your visitor. Clearly state the price on the sales page. You are actually wasting a visitor's time by not displaying it. I don't think they are going to appreciate enough to buy after that.

Yep. Unless you changed it I didn't see a price, I guess long copy is popular now but that copy was WAY too long for me. Maybe you state the price somewhere but given the length of the copy they are skimming over alot of it until the add cart buttons shows up.

I may get some heat for this but in my opinion the picture has got to go. It appears right over a blurb about the skills you picked up over five years. Problem? You look the most 19 so the reader is supposed to believe you picked up viable skills at 13/14 that they would want to use?

Know your audience. I suspect that most of your cart clicks are just curiousity from teens. Older guys are not going to take your experience seriously with that photo and they are the ones with the dough to buy it. I think in this case following the convention of showing a picture of yourself doesn't work.

Like alot of your copy though . Funny stuff

Granted, I'm not much of a copywriting expert, so I can't provide
you with some in-depth analysis of your sales page. What I can
do, however, is give you my observation on purely a potential
consumer level. Here's my best explanation as to why you've been
seeing statistics like that:

Whenever I see a long sales page like that, I usually read the
headline, read a few paragraphs - if that - of copy, maybe read
a testimonial or two, then skim down to find the price. In your sales
page - at least, from what I saw - the price isn't really advertised
much. When I skimmed your page, I think I saw your price once,
and the way it was stated was a little confusing to me.

Usually, if people can't really find the price, they'll click on the closest
order button to find out how much they have to shell out. This just
might be what's happening in your case.

The way I see it, you probably have two fixes: decrease your price,
or do a better job of advertising how much content/benefit readers
will be getting for the price.

Just my observation. Hope it helps!

All the best,

Jesse Kemmerer
kemmerer.j@gmail.com

Hey,

I thought your sales page was far too long. It didnt captivate me from the start.

Some good elements but thats just what I thought!

Hi, I noticed that you have a Paypal logo under your payment button but when I go to checkout, there is now Pay by Paypal in the pay area.

So many people already put in their credit card info with Paypal and when they see that they need to input it again into your payment area, they just leave.

I would set up a quick payment button with Paypal and that would save some of your trouble.

Also the graphics are bad as you need a professional minisite to stimulate your visitors emotions and lastly I get lost in the mile long sales copy.

You need to put a sign up form in the very beginning and offer your 10 best tips for free in a report or video of some kind.

Then you have the rest of eternity to convince them to purchase through your autoresponder.

I'm no copywriter but giving something of value just for showing up on the page to begin with will get you a great list of people to market to.

Hope this helps some as I too am learning something new every day.

Michael Ottman

Aronya, by all means: I don't consider it to be slamming my friend, in fact, I think your tip is very valuable because I FORGOT all about spelling & grammar..and I'm NOT a grammatical genius so thanks a lot!

Please check your Private Messages :-)

Any other comments out there?

Hi Dennis

Well, it's getting better

First, a couple of formatting issues. I hate the font! Maybe it's just me, but the font looks too "basic".

Also, each sentence seems to be too close to the edge of the border. If that were a typed out letter, it's like you've typed right to the edges.

Incidentally, here's a little secret I discovered from Marketing Sherpa experiments... try and keep each line to within about 60 characters. After that, the mind struggles because of the sentence lengths.

Now, down to the copy...

I'm liking the stories much better, i.e. how you compare online dating to the real world, and how she's getting that, but TEN TIMES as much online.

You have a real "knack" for telling entertaining stories... I like it! The one I really liked was how you got to see your younger sister's online dating account... BRILLIANT

Here's a question I have. What IS it? What exactly IS your program?

Is it a series of videos, ebooks, or what? (You may have answered that in your copy, but I couldn't see it).

I think you need to SPELL OUT what it is, and precisely what they'll get for their money.

For example, here's David DeAngelo's "Advanced Dating Techniques" sales letter:

Double Your Dating Advanced Dating Techniques Series

Notice he has a section entitled, "Here's What You Get"... and he gives the reader a graphical image, along with bullet points spelling out what they get, ie...

Nearly 18 full hours of digitally recorded material on 18 Audio CDs or 9 DVDs

A workbook full of teaching slides and aides

A detailed track listing for quick access

Sturdy 3-ring binder to hold all of your CDs/DVDs and other material

Now, I appreciate yours isn't a physical product, but it would still help if you could SPELL OUT precisely what they'll get, similar to how DeAngelo has done it.

Is it a series of videos? If so, how long? I recommend you answer that clearly in your copy.
Now, the other issue may not be directly your copy... but the MONEY.

The kinds of people who will buy this product... do they have the money? I'm not sure who you're pitching it to at the moment... and I appreciate anyone could use it in theory... but in practice, are you pitching it to people who can AFFORD IT?

I know DeAngelo's video products are $300-$500, but remember they have already purchased his "Double Your Dating" ebook ($20), so they are already customers... they've already spent money with him... plus, his higher priced products are physical products, shipped out to you.

I'm not saying $200 is expensive, but this might be one reason you're not getting the sales at the moment... especially as I don't think you're pitching to lawyers or people with lots of money

Maybe you can do a split test. Send half of your traffic to Version A, with your current price ($199)... and half to Version B, with the price at, say $99.

If Version B gets you many more sales, then price really IS a big issue. (The only way you'll find out is to split test).

In other words, I actually think the sales copy may perhaps be less of an issue than other issues such as price, and even trust.

Do the people who arrive on this site know you? Have they read any other material by you?

If not, why not overcome the trust barrier by GIVING AWAY a small part of your material, in exchange for their email address.

Then you can also follow up on them, and lead them into buying the rest of your program.

In other words, your sales copy is quite good... I suspect they may not be buying for bigger reasons, such as TRUST, BELIEVABILITY and even MONEY (or the lack of it).

Well spotted, Collette

Dennis, bringing "hustle" to the table does NOT involve copying and pasting large chunks of other people's sales letters.

You can copy DeAngelo's STYLE. But don't go using his WORDS. As Collette points out, that's just stealing.

DeAngelo has been doing this a lot longer than you, and if your potential customers realize what you've done, you're going to have ZERO credibility.

Quite frankly, it's already made me question whether your product is ALSO just a rip-off of DeAngelo's.

Hi Dennis,

since you`ve received a boat load of good advices, especially from Paul, I`ll just add my two cents. Just to spice things up a bit for you :-)

I feel like your copy is too monochrome, I`m afraid that you are not capturing the scanners. You are not braking the pattern at all!
You need some devices in place to pull them in where they jumped out. Your text seems to just flow on and on, without powerful attention grabbers.

It would be wise to use sidebars, to explain certain parts of the sales letter in more detail. Also, sidebars can be good attention grabbers, if you fill them with provocative topics. Think about that.

Also, testimonials are way too low. You can even place testimonials in the beginning of the sales letter, in sidebars. I would put them on the left side, because left side is where they start reading, so you can build instant credibility this way. Just make sure you look for the testimonials with a fine tooth comb, to make sure you place the most powerful ones on top.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

Best

I'm not a copywriter - just a guy who's trying to learn. So like Jesse's comments, my observations are more from the angle of a consumer.

First, the price is hidden. Among other things, your copy should show that your product is a real value - worth 10x the price, for example. If you've done that, you should be proud of the price.

When you hide the price, you're telling your prospects that you're embarrassed about it (i.e. you don't believe that your product has the value you've tried to "prove").


Second, the letter is too wide. Eyes that have to travel too far left-to-right will tire, and your readers will quickly give up. For me, that happened when I realized the first section of bullets ("just a few of the things you'll learn") was 16 screens long. When your bullets cause a reader to lose interest, it's a pretty big problem.

Which leads to the third thing. The first half of the letter has nothing to catch the attention of skimmers. Unfortunately, by the time I skimmed past the huge block of text, I didn't even slow down in the second half.

Now for a final caveat: I'm not part of your target market. This could mean that none of the above comments really matter.

Hey Kelly, and the others off course,

Thanks for all the input... I want to reply to some of it here and there though because one of Kelly''s last sentences is important: you guys are not part of my target market and that means...

- Yes, people skim...I know, but I don't know a single soul in my target market that does Control + End whenever they land on a page about something they like, because even if the page sucks? They don't even know that Ctrl + End can be used for it

- Price, price, price...I hear a lot of "it isn't visibles" and am kind of surprised, because I've modelled Eben Pagan's double your dating style of where to put the price + guarantee, and his Double your dating has a gross profit of 25 million a year and what else am I suppose to do? Repeat the price 8 friggin times? have you ever seen any good sales letter doing that?

- About removing every word that isn't crucial...you could have a point there Daniel.

But you guys, to be honest? I feel I understand less about copywriting then I did before this topic, and I'm seriously starting to hate writing...and if I'll see the same results during this month and next month?

I'll just hire my but off until I find something who can do a better job, because I'm an expert in my niche...not a friggin' robo techie nerd that crunches out 5 sales letters a day. As you can tell, I'm annoyed by the "simply" copywriting BS that gurus throw at me. I dare them to write something that works for me bet they can't do it from their ivory white tower as we say in my country

Dennis,

First of all... you have a good set of skills in place already.

But that last push is the hard part... and if you have the cash to hire, that's probably a good way to do things.

Your market doesn't use control+end... they just grab the sidebar and scroll down, or use their mouse wheel.

That's what skimming is.

As far as I'm concerned the only place you need ot mention the price is when you do the "price justification" part of your copy... although apparently the "Belcher Button" converts like crazy (not something I've personally tested, however... although something I DO usually use as Perry is apparently a testing NUT).

Any good copywriter should be able to turn this into a pretty sexy piece of copy though.

-Dan